Revolutionizing Graffiti Cleanup: WSDOT’s Drone Program In Action

The Washington Department of Transportation (WSDOT) has launched a spray drone program to combat highway graffiti. Maintenance technicians in Tacoma and at WSDOT HQ in Olympia are hard at work troubleshooting the drone, which comes equipped with graffiti-fighting capabilities. If everything goes to plan, defaced surfaces all along I-705 will soon be staring down the drone’s imposing nozzle. At present there are no plans for a statewide rollout. This latest beautification campaign is highly imaginative, if slightly surreal. The idea was first raised by Mike Gauger, a regional WSDOT superintendent from whom we are awaiting comment. The drone requires a human operator, but only for proper positioning. Otherwise this technology is self-sufficient. It can reach obscure cracks and crevices, as well as bridges, overpasses and so forth. This would be difficult, if not wholly unfeasible, with a conventional human cleanup crew. Graffiti does perhaps have artistic merit; Manfred Kirchheimer’s 1981 documentary on the subject, Stations of the Elevated, is downright painterly. But in the eyes of transit authorities, graffiti is a persistent and sometimes provocative (i.e. gang-related) blight on Washington expressways. More than that, graffiti impedes the “dignity of our public infrastructure,” says State Rep. Andrew Barkis (R-Olympia). The Barkis-sponsored...